THE quilt on speed.

ummm...so remember a few days ago when i was a bit worried that perhaps i might never finish pringle's quilt? yes well, apparently my fears were completely groundless. i was totally possessed and energized on saturday, so i got to work.

totally wacko knee pads.

i laid out all the circles...crawling around on my makeshift kneepads (some of the mister's socks strapped to my knees) until i was completely satisfied with the placement of each circle. around the time my knees were ready to fall off, despite the "knee pads," the circles were ready for pinning. since my knees could take no more, i flopped onto my rump and scooted around pinning down every single circle. and then i had to iron each circle to activate the fusible interfacing (glue) so the circles were attached to the background fabric. finally i had to sew circles around the edges of each circle. holy bananas.

did i mention that there are ninety-two circles? just in case you did not get it the first time, there are NINETY-TWO circles!!! as you can probably imagine this entire process was rather overwhelming. needless to say, it is with relief and disbelief that i can tell you the front of the quilt is complete. well, as long as you are willing to ignore the seven empty spaces reserved for the fabric en route from the mister's family in lesotho.

next step...the back of the quilt. the little pieces are all sewn together. now i am waiting for the rest of the fabric to arrive (hopefully tomorrow). once i have it i can finish the back and then finish the whole quilt. gasp. it is starting to seem like maybe, just maybe, this quilt will be finished before the little one's arrival. phew.

THE quilt snooze.

the glorious roman glass pastel.

it has been a little while since my last post. considering that there is a new life brewing in my belly, a slightly overwhelming quilt project in progress, and the regular nonsense that is my existence, you would think i would have something to say. i do, except i have been sleeping. a lot. oh and trying to get semi-prepared for the impending arrival of little pringle.

my "extra" fabric from fabric.com. yum.

but it is time for a quilt update. although i have been hitting the snooze button a LOT, i have accomplished a few tasks. i officially decided that the backing fabric will be roman glass pastel - big thanks to those of you who put in a vote. it is expected to arrive on tuesday and i canNOT wait. of course, all i had to do was spend an extra $15 to get free shipping, so naturally i had to buy some other goodies. poor me. i got a couple simple, but lovely designs. but back to the quilt. after coming up with a design two weeks ago, i finally finally finally cut all the pieces for the back. it was hard to find the time in between all my sleeping, but it happened.

lots of backing pieces...yahoo!!

it has been a few weeks since i have pondered the front of the quilt. i cut out the background fabric, marked the edges of the design space with masking tape, and started laying out circles. my plan was to arrange the circles by size...spreading the various sizes out evenly across the whole design. sadly the result was a discombobulated hodgepodge. then i tried arranging the circles by color and voila...i was in love. but that leads us to a BIG problem. i am STILL waiting for the fabric coming from lesotho. it has been in transit for over a month and we have no idea when it will arrive. super frustrating, but what can you do? sooooo after waiting another couple weeks, i finally gave in to the fact that i have to begin sewing without this fabric in hand. the mister called his sister to inquire about the colors of the expected fabric, so i will  be able to save spaces and start sewing. 

messy hodgepodge. this layout clearly ain't working.

long story short...today i am officially laying out all of the circles. i have strapped a pair of the mister's socks to my knees, because my ordinary methods of squatting or crouching are simply not gonna happen with my mondo-belly. instead i will be crawling around on my makeshift knee pads. awesome. soon, very soon, i will post some pictures of quilt progress.

THE quilt conundrum.

when people think of quilts, the focus is always on the front of the quilt. but after putting hours and hours of work into a quilt, it seems silly to make a boring back. after all, with just a little extra design you can have a second quilt. fancy. sounds simple. but then you throw me into the equation and it becomes enormously complicated. first of all, i want to incorporate each of the fabrics that were sent by friends and family. ohh-kay, that is a lot of fabric, but with the perfect design it is going to work.

the design.

second, i need a base fabric (the large greenish sections of the design) that will be interesting enough to make a "second" quilt, but simple enough that it does not outshine all the other fabrics. oh and it has to be gender neutral, because pringle is a surprise. in other words, the perfect fabric. mmmhmm...no problem.

marimekko unikko.

luckily, mrs. nipper knapp recently succeeded in nudging me to expand my fabric horizons, beyond the local joann's fabric store, to include the internet. now i am confronted with overwhelming amounts of fabric, to say the least. i immediately fall in love with the glorious marimekko unikko fabric, which i have convinced myself, despite the flowers, is not gender specific. great! until i discover it is $43 per yard. jeepers. that is a bit much, even for my beloved baby.

back on the prowl, i  spent three hours perusing etsy, fabric.com, and purl soho. after ogling hundreds (maybe thousands) of different fabrics, i narrowed my list to nine contenders. and then the mister came home and put in his two cents and we are down to four choices. now we need your help. please please tell me your thoughts....or pick a favorite or two (keep in mind these swatches only show 4" of fabric and the quilt will be about 50" square). grazie.

roman glass pastel (kaffe fasset).

illuminating dots lime (penny lane).

paperweight lime (kaffe fasset).

stones earthy (naturella).

THE quilt day 7.

this is the second to last round of circle creation. we are still waiting on fabric from the mister's family, but since it is traveling over eight thousand miles, from a country with a dubious (at best) postal system, we are not sure when it is to be expected. this weekend i have plans to start figuring out the arrangement of the circles. i have a lovely digital representation, but it needs to happen in reality. and maybe, just maybe, i will begin the official sewing. i am having an internal debate about the merits of hand sewing versus machine sewing. i suspect technology will win, but one can never be sure. i am thinking that any inkling i have for the idea of hand sewing is prompted only by my desire to utilize my darling needle holder...

me thinks everyone should have a snazzy needle case.

anyhow, with no further ado, the latest round of circles, which came to us from california, new york, and dubai.

p.s. just in case you were wondering...it is officially too late to send fabric. but thank you for thinking of us!!

THE quilt day 6.

a wee bit of time has passed since the last installment of quilt news, but there are good reasons. first, the mister and i went on a much needed and first-ever vacation. oh we have traveled together, but we have never gone somewhere, just the two of us, for the sole purpose of relaxing and spending time with just each other. ummm...i do not know why we waited four years to do this. i guess we had some idea that it would require lots of planning or money or time. it did not. we drove two hours, found a lovely little motel on the beach, and plunked down for two days of doing whatever we felt like doing whenever we felt like doing it. it was dreamy.

lounging at vero beach.

second reason is that i have officially entered the third trimester of pregnancy and my weekday energy has been zapped right out of my bones. which leaves me the weekends for sewing. long story short, yesterday was my first day of sewing in ten days. gasp!

this time around we have circles from california, virgina, florida, and germany.

the last bits of fabric are trickling in from around the globe. despite wanting to wait for every last person i have ever known to send fabric, on march 31st, i finally decreed that i would no longer accept new offers. so the last pieces of cloth are making their way to us and the design is finalized. phew. i cannot wait to start putting it all together!

wonky windows #15.

a collection of random photos from the past week.

this is a picture of my inner elbow. i had to go through a three hour glucose tolerance test, which included four, yes FOUR blood draws. not cool. now i know that my veins are challenging, but typically after some whining and griping, the nurses do hit their target and there is no problem. ummm..not this time around. this is the chronology of my arm. on the left is the day after the test. in the middle is about five days after the test. and on the right is seven days after the test. it is now nine days after the test and it is still the same. i am starting to wonder if this is permanent.

this picture was taken through my windshield. i was stuck behind this behemoth the other day and i could not help but chuckle. i always find it amusing to see gigantic gas guzzlers making claims towards environmental friendliness. now i realize that this company deals with liquid waste cleanup (i.e. sewage spills), so that is probably a good thing for the environment, but it still made me laugh.

i am overly fond of buying large bags of oranges, clementines, tangerines, etc. unfortunately they often sit on the counter until they rot and then we throw them away. terribly wasteful, i know. but last week i bought a bag and promptly devoured them. deliciouso!!! holy cow they were so perfect easy to peel and super duper juicy. so i bought another bag. and another. the mister and i have consumed approximately nine pounds of these mandarin oranges in a mere ten days. and the stickers? could they be any cuter?? i mean, seriously, could they?

this is the cutie that got away. it rolled behind the tv stand and bikes. the mister declared it out of reach for mrs. prego. i grumbled that he was being ridiculous. and then i saw the location and realized that he was right. grrrrrrr.

interested in participating in wonky windows? check out the instructions.

shirr impossible.

last week was my spring break and i have a tradition of sewing my way through spring breaks. of course, this time around i am awfully pregnant, so 23 hours straight at the sewing machine was out of the question, but i did spend at least a few hours a day working the pedals. most of the time i was fussing over pringle's quilt, but once i was on a roll sewing circles, i had some spare time. i decided that it was imperative to make a long sundress. i hopped on the internet to search for an easy sundress pattern and well, the results were a bit less than fruitful. i mean, there were a LOT of dresses, but they all seemed to be for little girls.

the dress in my imagination.

soooo...i figured that since i like to act like a five-year-old, i might as well dress like one. i used this shirred dress tutorial, which is of course modeled by a little girl. no surprise there. now i do not know about you, but i have never shirred fabric. a few months ago i discovered a shirring tutorial and bought some elastic thread. i never actually sat down to do any shirring, so the elastic thread was still hanging around in my sewing bins. i dug out a gigantic piece of cloth i bought in lesotho in 2004. clearly it was time to use this gorgeous fabric. 

i have hoarded 5 meters of this fabric for 7 years. i like it. lots.

i cut out my pieces and sewed the sides together. and then i shirred. and shirred. and shirred. and shirred. ten inches of shirring later and i had the bodice of the dress complete.

shirring.

the shirred bodice.

unfortunately when i tried on the "dress" it looked about as awesome as a potato sack. not cute. so i cut off the bottom, added more material to make it ruffly, and then reattached it. now, when viewed from the front, it is definitely a dress, but then i turn to the side and well....it does not exactly show things off in grand style. rather it makes me look like a big-bellied whale with a gigantic arse. still not cute.

lovely dress that i cannot yet wear.

of course i convinced myself that if i washed the dress, the fabric would relax and it would all be golden. sadly, no. the dress is lovely, but it is decidedly NOT maternity wear. so i will be the cutest post-prego ever, but i still gots no long dress for wearing with the little pringle ensconced in my belly. but i have grand plans. i am going to make this dress again with floppy fabric that will drop straight down below the belly, rather than using the belly as a ramp to flip out an additional three feet. it is gonna be awesome. you'll see.

THE quilt day 3, 4, & 5.

fabric has been coming in a few pieces at a time, so i have been making a few circles each day. here is where i should note that the "day" in the title represents the days that i actually work on the quilt. i take pictures after each set of circles, but somehow i got a bit sidetracked with who knows what and i neglected to post the pictures from the weekend. my deepest apologies to mrs. s.s., who expressed her desire to see the latest contributions (which include hers) by telling me to "get to it missy!" i cannot argue with enthusiasm, so all i have to say is "yes ma'am."

day three. representing new york, illinois, arizona, and florida.

day four. representing colorado and germany...added another continent!!! yahoo!!

day five. the most recent contributions. representing virgina and ME! for reasons unknown, when i finished sewing my wedding dress, i left all the scraps at my parent's house, so i have been waiting for the arrival of that fabric. in case you are not sure, it's the white circles.

THE quilt. day 2.

i have to admit that it does not seem that i made much progress on the quilt yesterday. but i did. i made twenty of the fill-in-the-gap circles, which are awfully itty bitty, but totally adorable. and i received two more pieces of fabric in the mail, so i made two more big circles. plus i did some brain organization to figure out how on earth i am going to put all of these fabrics together, especially since there are still twenty one fabrics en route. yikes. apparently the world is just as excited as me about procrastinating and being fashionably late.

day two circles.

since i want to keep up the progress of sewing, i had to come up with a plan to handle the additional fabrics which are expected to arrive sometime in the next two (or three....eeek!) weeks. i started trying to draw the design on paper, but the scale is awfully important and without some sort of mini-template, there was no way for me to do this by hand. so i switched to digital designing. seems a bit like overkill for a "simple" quilt, but my pops is an engineer and that half of me does not do carefree designing. when i moved to the computer my goal was to make sure that i can actually fit all of the circles onto the size quilt i had planned.

the digital quilt.

good news...it is all sorted. until someone else informs me that they are sending fabric. then things could get a bit hairy. i suppose i will just cross that bridge when i get to it. for now the purple, green, dark blue, orange, and yellow circles are all sewn. the light blue circles are the placeholders for the fabrics i have not yet received and i expect to add more of the mini circles (yellow, orange, and dark blue). just looking at this makes me smile, because the quilt is coming to life. yahoo!!!

THE quilt. day 1.

for the past month we have been receiving fabric and wishes in our mailbox. i was expecting this project to be fun, i had no idea that it would be totally amazing. i have been blown away by the spirit and generosity of each person who has sent fabric. thus far we have 32 fabrics from 23 different people...we have gotten old, new, used, and blue...they have come from 8 states, and three continents...

32 fabrics.

this week is my spring break, and for my entire five years of teaching, i have always sewed my way through spring break. i did not see any reason why this week should be any different. but i spent yesterday morning at the doctor's office suffering through a glucose tolerance test and yesterday afternoon moping around hoping against hope that the tests would come back normal. last night i organized and ironed all of the quilt fabric and today i was determined to get to sewing. but then the doctor's office called to tell me my results were normal, which made me so happy it took me thirty minutes to come back down to earth.

circle templates.

back to the quilt. i had planned on cutting a square from each fabric and sewing them all together. and then mrs. nipper knapp found this gem of a quilt at purl bee. neither one of us can imagine why anyone would make a mini quilt, so we both opted for baby quilts. she has already finished hers, which makes me feel like a slow slow dodo-bird, but i digress. this quilt calls for circles. lots and lots of circles. and i LOVE circles. my plan is to make a big circle with each of the fabrics and then make little fill-in-the-gaps circles with all of the scraps. today i made a circle with each of the 32 fabrics that are in my possession. and if i may say so myself, this quilt is gonna be stupendous.

next step...start making fill-in-the-gaps circles with the 32 scraps and wait for the other fabrics that are en route. luckily this pattern is perfect for all of my procrastinating pals. since the circles are attached to a large background fabric, i can just leave spaces for the twenty or so fabrics that have not yet arrived. fantastic-O!

easy peasy burp cloths tutorial.

i do not want my little pringle to suffer the fate of the cobbler's children, so i am getting a head start on sewing for my baby. the other day as i wandered through the fabric store, i came across some lovely flannel on super sale. i decided to buy some to make some burp cloths. i chose four different fabrics and bought a half yard of each. not sure about the general sizing of burp cloths, i turned to the internet. i quickly discovered that "basic burp cloth patterns" are overly complicated, because they are always in the shape of a peanut. now i have not ever raised a child, so maybe i am missing something, but for the life of me, i cannot figure out why a rectangular-shaped burp cloth is undesirable. i have a feeling that all of you moms out there are snickering and thinking, "ha! she will learn soon enough that the only way to properly handle spit-up is with a peanut-shaped cloth," but just in case there are other folks out there like me, i have created this tutorial for the world's easiest rectangular burp cloths. if you can sew a straight line, you can make these.

materials (for five burp cloths about 8" x 18"): 1/2 yard of each of two different complimentary flannels and thread.

step 1. cut your fabric into 8" strips (don't worry about cutting the length - it is already 18"). you should have ten of these strips - five in each color. cutting perfection is not of the essence, because we will clean it up in step 3. 

cut 2 pieces of flannel about 8" x 18"

step 2. put one strip of each fabric right sides together. i did not use pins, but if you are a uncomfortable sewing without pins, then now would be your moment of pinning. when you are ready to sew, start in the middle of one end and sew around the edges with a 1/4" seam allowance. leave a 2" opening to turn the cloth right-side out.

step 3. clean up the edges and cut off the corners, making sure you do not cut through any stitches.

cleaning up the seam allowance and cutting off the corners.

step 4. use the gap to turn the cloths right side out. if you have a bone tool, now would be the time to put it to use. if you do not have one, use a chopstick or some other small pointy-ish thing to push out the corners.

a bone tool.

the cloth turned right-side out.

step 5. iron the cloth flat, making sure the seams are pulled out as far as possible. tuck under the edges of the gap and iron flat.

step 6. sew around the edges with a tiny seam allowance (i did about 1/8"). this will close the gap and make the cloths look pretty.

sewing along the edges will close the gap. the closer the better.

and that is it!! you are done. enjoy your stack of easy peasy burp cloths.

two of my finished burp cloths.